Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
A fox coming out of its burrow to sniff leaves as the darkness settles.
The glade below the cliff.
The place where Brian Newcomb’s body was found.
I’m clicking so fast now it’s like I’m trying to keep up with my pulse.
A few shots clicked away, then back as headlights glow through the trees. Every shot after shows those headlights coming closer, so dim they’re ghostly, so many successive shots it’s almost like a moving film.
Then I see it.
The trucks.
That town car.
The usual swarm of people moving around, a thing I’ve seen so many times, but never anything incriminating enough for a search and seizure, except—
There.
Xavier fucking Arrendell.
Joseph Peters is behind the wheel and Xavier’s stepping out of the back, dressed to the nines like he’s heading into a business meeting.
Only, the only person he’s meeting is Eustace Jacobin.
I don’t realize I’ve stopped breathing until my head goes light.
I suck in a mad breath while Talia exhales next to me. A quick glance shows her eyes wide, transfixed, while I click away.
There it is again.
Money changing hands.
A tight green roll passing from him to her, just distinct enough to be sure that’s what it is, and then she passes a white-wrapped brick to him. Probably a product sample.
Oh, fuck.
It’s perfect.
It’s enough and even if there’s no proof that brick is pure cocaine, it’ll be plenty to convince a judge I have grounds for a full fucking raid on the Jacobins and the Arrendells. The smoking gun has arrived, all thanks to this dead hiker.
Finally.
I’m fucking finally going to put these bastards in handcuffs.
So many times I’ve wanted to go rogue, to get vengeance, damn the consequences. I’m still not sure I won’t, but for now, there’s a certain satisfaction in knowing that my patience paid off and I did this the right way.
All I need is a warrant and a SWAT team to make sure the pricks responsible for the deaths of my brother and so many others are finally arrested.
Justice at last.
The sheer excitement chokes me so hard I almost miss the significance of the next few photos.
Eustace, leaning to whisper to Xavier. A subtle turn of their heads, not quite toward the camera.
Then Eustace slipping off into the trees.
Brian clearly never figured out that he was spotted because he kept taking photos up until the point where the next photo goes blurry.
He’s falling.
A few more shots auto-clicking, showing the night whizzing by.
Just pure sky.
And then the last shot.
An ominous, dark silhouette with a long skirt, standing at the edge of the cliff and looking down.
Talia’s low gasp breaks my trance.
“Shit,” I mutter, inhaling roughly and looking at her. She’s staring at the screen, her blue eyes liquid with fear, one hand pressed over her mouth.
Rolf whines and noses at her thigh.
“Oh my God,” Talia whispers. “She… she really pushed him.”
“I’m afraid so. Not one word of what you saw here, Talia. I have a lot of legal channels to go through to put this to work. If they get wind that we know, even the slightest hint, they could just up and disappear. And I’ll lose everything.”
“What? I’d never do that to you!” She sounds a little hurt, but mostly just insistent. “I know how much you need this.”
“I had to make sure.” I look back at the screen and start downloading the files just in case they vanish from the cloud. “You should go home. I’m going to be wrapped up in this for a while. No reason for you to get tangled up deeper.”
No reason for you to get hurt, I mean.
I’ve used her enough.
I never should have to start with, though without her I wouldn’t have any of this.
I’m grateful.
More grateful than I know how to express.
Which is why I need to let her go before she gets in so deep she can’t find her way out.
I turn slowly, swiveling the barstool—but my knee hits her bag and it slips off her shoulder. It tumbles to the floor, spilling folders and papers.
We both lunge for it, me cursing.
We almost bang heads as we hit the kitchen floor on our knees.
She grabs her portfolio while I sweep up the scattered papers and stop, frowning at what looks like a top sheet of legal jargon beneath the Arrendell letterhead.
“What’s this?”
Talia blinks, then tugs it out of my hand and looks at it.
There’s a guilty flush to her cheeks, but she’s also smiling.
“Oh, the contract!” She fans the pages to the last one, where a monogrammed check is paper-clipped to the final signed page. “The first check.” Her smile nearly breaks her face. I realize just what I’m about to do as she says, “Grandpa’s going to be okay.”
Fucking hell.
I’m about to rugpull every last hope she ever had from under her.
All so I can have my justice.
I’ve known.
I’ve always known.
Still, as long as it wasn’t concrete, as long as it was this slow game of cat and mouse, I could pretend this day wouldn’t come.